Motorola has done its best to deliver a premium experience with an
affordable price tag with the Moto G, the little sibling to the higher
priced Moto X. Both phones have Google's stamp all over them, and share a
surprising amount in common besides that, too. Best of all, the Moto G
is a phone that mostly delivers on its marketing premise, offering an
experience that'll have many doing a double take at that price tag.
The one big problem with the design is the mechanism for removing the
“removable” back case. You essentially dig in at the spot where the
case breaks for the micro USB port, and then pull. Hard. Too hard. My
fingers are tender from switching the device between case types, and I
really felt I had to go beyond the point of what you could reasonably
expect an average consumer to be comfortable with. Still, I honestly
don't think most people will care about switching the backplates beyond
maybe doing it once.
The camera on the Moto G isn't wonderful, but it's fine for general use, and much better than you'll find on most other budget smartphones. In a device like this, what I'm expecting from a camera is a workmanlike charm, and that's what Motorola delivers. It's a phone where you have to continually call to mind that absurdly low price tag – and when you do that, the photos the Moto G takes look plenty good.
The battery life on the Moto G makes it a great candidate for a “throw it in a bag, forget about it until you travel” phone, since in low power mode it can stretch its standby life to around a week. Under heavier use it returns to the realm of results achieved by other devices (but still beats most of them) and will definitely get you through the day. But again, in a budget phone, to have this kind of battery power is amazing.
Basics
- 4.5-inch, 1280×720, 326ppi display
- 8 or 16GB storage
- 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front-facing
- 802.11n Wi-Fi
- Pentaband HSDPA support
- Bluetooth 4.0
- MSRP: $179/$199 unlocked, off-contract
- Product info page
- Price
- Amazing price
- You cannot buy a better phone at this price
- Max value, but still cuts some corners
Design:
Motorola's Moto G is a little on the pudgy side, but it feels at once comfortable and familiar. The matte finish back cases are great for grip, (though terrible for showing wear, as you can see from the photos), and it almost reminds me of the design of the iPhone 3G and 3GS. It also feels heavier than most modern superphones, but only just, and the weight isn't necessarily a problem, as it adds a feeling of resilience to the Moto G. In many ways, the Moto G's design harkens back to an era where phones were phones and meant business, and I found myself enjoying that impression.
Features
The Moto G has a number of unique features, though most of the development of the phone was based on stripping out the inessential and making a phone that just performs well despite a lower cost to build. There's Moto Care, for instance, which offers instant access to tech support from Motorola staff via instant message or phone; Assist, which offers special modes for Driving, Meeting and Sleeping that change your phone's behavior with one tap to suit different contexts; and Motorola Migrate, for bringing your old settings, text messages, call history, media and more with you when switching devices.Performance
The Moto G isn't a $600 superphone, but the times you're aware of that while using it are surprisingly rare. It moves around the OS smoothly and quickly, for instance. Likewise, it quickly calls up Google Now and delivers speech recognition with the same accuracy and speed as its more expensive cousins. The only place I noticed some lag and slowdown was in the browser, where image-heavy content can cause some stuttering, but only in extreme cases: even photo heavy tumblrs, which are otherwise pretty sleek, behaved well.The camera on the Moto G isn't wonderful, but it's fine for general use, and much better than you'll find on most other budget smartphones. In a device like this, what I'm expecting from a camera is a workmanlike charm, and that's what Motorola delivers. It's a phone where you have to continually call to mind that absurdly low price tag – and when you do that, the photos the Moto G takes look plenty good.
Battery
The Moto G earns its stripes with the battery, leaving aside its other nice attributes. It's got “all day” life, according to Motorola, and that can translate to a lot depending on your usage patterns. I found that with light usage, I was getting around three days out of a single charge on average, which, in the age of smartphones, is just crazy.The battery life on the Moto G makes it a great candidate for a “throw it in a bag, forget about it until you travel” phone, since in low power mode it can stretch its standby life to around a week. Under heavier use it returns to the realm of results achieved by other devices (but still beats most of them) and will definitely get you through the day. But again, in a budget phone, to have this kind of battery power is amazing.
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